First Comes Love Read online

  Gray tells me Amanda discovered this spot. It’s invisible from the street above, blocked by the warehouse buildings. This makes it completely private, open to only a few worthy patrons. This is where he came on the weekends with friends. For a brief period of time on a Friday or Saturday night, they called the shots, and no one could bring them down. Life was theirs to control, not structured and mandated by parents and teachers, coaches and schedules.

  He says after Amanda died, he skipped class sometimes to come out here by himself and smoke.

  “I didn’t even like smoking,” he says. “But I needed something to force me to breathe. Sometimes it took effort just to breathe.”

  “No one else comes out here?” I ask.

  “After she died it became a memorial. I still find letters left for Amanda, from the few people that know this place exists. People leave photographs and flowers. Once in a while they leave letters for me.”

  We’re quiet for a few minutes. The only sounds are cars speeding by overhead. But they feel distant, like memories, like we’re worlds away from everyone.

  “Amanda was cremated,” Gray says, his tone almost emotionless. We look out at the dusty tracks below us. The sun is blinding bright.

  “This is her tombstone to me,” he says.

  ***

  We grab a late lunch at a café his sister loved called Gecko Grub in Tempe. We sit at the outdoor patio, where Amanda used to spend hours people watching. We order burgers and curly fries and milk shakes.

  “Amanda had excellent taste,” I say as I pop a fry into my mouth. I haven’t spoken very much today. I only ask questions. I listen. Learning about Amanda is like getting to know another side of Gray—his adventurous, ridiculous side. His happiest side. People become pieces inside of you. They can fill you up and make you whole. I think Amanda is his favorite piece, the one he is most proud of. Now I can understand why he caved in.

  “How do you feel about all this?” I ask.

  Gray picks at his fries. “I wouldn’t call today fun,” he admits. “But it wasn’t awful either. I didn’t know what to expect.”

  I nod slowly and wait for him to continue. He looks up at me and realizes there’s more to my question. He sits back in his chair and looks out at the street. Today was all about the past. It was about bringing Amanda back to life. But it’s time to come back to reality.

  Gray speaks slowly, like he’s trying to hold himself together.

  “I’m just trying to figure out how to live without her,” he says. “That’s the hardest part. I know you’ll never meet her. I know she won’t get married or go to school or have a family—all the things she deserved to experience. I just can’t accept that she’s only a memory now. She deserves so much more than that.”

  We’re both quiet for a few seconds. I feel my forehead crease, and start fidgeting with my napkin. Gray’s watching me.

  “What is it?” he asks.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I admit. “I hate that. I wish I had all the answers for you. I wish I could explain why this happened.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t. Don’t say anything. I’d rather you say nothing than say something stupid, like ‘Oh, now she’s in heaven, where she belongs because she was too perfect to live on earth.’ I hate it when people say that.”

  He exhales sharply and I can see the anger filling his eyes.

  “I mean, there’s no one like her. No one. She touched every person’s life that was lucky enough to know her. Everyone loved her. Of all the stupid, selfish, people that get to live, every day, she had to die. Why? Because she’s an angel and she belongs in heaven?”

  I shake my head.

  “Well, fuck heaven,” he says. His eyes start to water but he’s too angry to care. “We need people like Amanda here, on earth. Because there aren’t enough good people left. Heaven can wait.”

  Gray sucks in a deep breath to try to calm down. He’s waited too long to talk about Amanda. To open up his memories. He wasn’t doing Amanda any honor by letting himself shrivel up and drown in anger and denial and depression. Now I know why his face looked so blank when we first met, why his eyes were so vacant all the time. He wasn’t even living. He was just hiding away to avoid the pain.

  But pain’s like water. It finds a way to push through any seal. There’s no way to stop it. Sometimes you have to let yourself sink inside of it before you can learn how to swim to the surface.

  ***

  Our last stop is one of Amanda’s favorite music stores, Happy Trail Records. It has a mix of new and used music, but it’s best known for its selection of vintage concert T-shirts and posters in the back of the store.

  While Gray’s looking through CDs, I tell him we should do something for his mom.

  “Like what?” he asks.

  “Let’s surprise her,” I say. “Want to make her dinner?”

  His mouth twitches like he’s trying to fight a smile. “Do you cook?” he asks.

  “I prepare an amazing frozen pizza,” I offer.

  “Wow,” he says. “I heard preheating an oven is an acquired skill.”

  I nod. “What’s your specialty?”

  He leans against the CD rack and admits his own culinary expertise involves microwaving leftovers. “And I make exceptional turkey sandwiches,” he adds. “The bread to turkey to mayo ratio is tricky, but I’ve mastered it.”

  “Okay, scratch dinner plans,” I say. “We can get her a card. What about chocolate? Does she like chocolate?”

  He stares at me. “What woman doesn’t?”

  “True, that’s not very original. What else does she like?”

  “Sleeping,” he says. I wait until he gives me something to work with. “All right—my dad used to surprise her with a bottle of wine. That always made her day.”

  “Red or white?”

  “Red. I think she likes Shiraz or something.”

  We walk out to my car and I wonder out loud how we can get her a bottle, and Gray smiles.

  “Maybe we should settle for chocolate,” he says.

  First Kiss

  Gray

  We drive back to Dylan’s aunt’s house and I follow her inside. The interior is as immaculate as the outdoor landscape. It looks like an art museum, cluttered with statues, paintings, and sculptures. Dylan walks me around the living room and introduces me to plants she named: Ivo, Ivy, Ivan, and Yvette. She points out her red backpack on the floor is Ruby.

  “You have a naming fetish,” I inform her.

  She tells me she names everything. Even her freckles. She turns her arm over and introduces me to two freckles close to each other on her forearm, Blake and Stacey. She claims they got in a fight with a third freckle, Meredith, farther up her arm near her elbow. I don’t encourage the conversation any further.

  We slump down on the leather couch and contemplate what to get my mom. Well, she contemplates what to get my mom. I contemplate kissing her. I strategically sat down close enough that our arms are touching. My calf brushes against hers. It makes my entire leg heat up.

  Now. Do it now, you chump. Kiss her.

  My eyes slip down to her lips and then back to her eyes. It’s a way of asking permission. But she’s oblivious. She’s not even looking at me.

  “I want to get her some wine,” she says with a determined nod. I sigh, because we are on such completely opposite missions right now. I pull my fingers through my hair.

  “Why do you want to get her the one thing we can’t buy?”

  “Because she’ll never suspect it’s from us. It will be a completely random surprise, and those are the best kind.”

  I look around the room. “Does your Aunt Dan have any wine?” I ask. We head to the kitchen and search her aunt’s refrigerator and pantry with no luck.

  Dylan paces back and forth in front of the counter. “We could steal it.”

  “That’s a phenomenal idea,” I say.

  She stops pacing and looks at me. “Really?” she asks.

  “Sur
e. Getting arrested would be the perfect surprise for my mom. I think it would really raise her sprits to think her last living child is a closet alcoholic with a criminal record.”

  “Good point. Well, then we need a pawn,” she decides.

  “A pawn?”

  “Somebody to do the work for us. Do you know anybody who’s twenty-one?”

  I raise my shoulder and tell Dylan it would be a little rude to call friends I haven’t spoken to all year just to ask them to go on a booze run for me.

  “Then there’s only one other option.”

  I look back at her plotting eyes. Uh-oh.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later I’m sitting on Dylan’s aunt’s king-size bed while Dylan changes in the most gigantic walk-in closet I’ve ever seen. I glance around the bedroom, the size of an entire floor of my house. Everything in the room is decorated in blue and gold colors. Even the carpeting has flecks of sparkling gold in it. I wonder what man would ever willingly allow this kind of carpeting in his house. Maybe her husband was gay too, I decide.

  “Where is your aunt, anyway?” I yell.

  “She’s in Vegas for a few weeks,” Dylan shouts back through the closed door. “Don’t worry, she wouldn’t care if she came home. She’s pretty laid back.”

  Dylan opens the closet door and walks out with a silly, lopsided grin on her face. I stare at her and bust up laughing. She managed to find a denim jumper. It looks like it was designed in the early eighties and it’s short on her, falling at midcalf to expose her scrawny ankles. She’s wearing a white turtleneck underneath it. The jumper balloons out around her, actually making Dylan look frumpy. She found some brown stockings with little pink cats on them, and she’s wearing brown leather sandals with bows on the top. A beige leather purse with a braided strap hangs off her shoulder. She looks forty.

  “Unbelievable,” I say.

  Dylan grins and turns to view herself in the full-length mirror. She hops up and down and claps her hands. Next comes the hair and makeup, she informs me. I follow her into the bathroom and we search through the drawers until we find an old basket of cosmetics. I watch Dylan apply bright red lipstick to her mouth, smudging some on her teeth, on purpose, and coating the outside of her lips too.

  “This is what the tacky old ladies in Scottsdale do,” she points out. She dusts her cheekbones with dark pink blush and adds a few moles to her skin with a black eyeliner pencil. She pulls half of her hair up in a barrette and finds some pearl earrings. It’s beyond professional. And hilarious. And adorable. I think I love this girl.

  Dylan sticks maxi pads on her shoulders underneath the turtleneck (to my nauseating observation) to give her temporary shoulder pads. She also stuffs socks in her bra to give her “mommy boobs.” I shake my head with admiration.

  “It’s go big or go home,” she tells me. Or get caught and go to jail, I want to add.

  She finds an old pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses and puts them on.

  “What do you think?” She turns to face me, and I feel like I’m looking at my Aunt Mildred.

  “You need a frump,” I suggest.

  “A what?”

  “A front gut,” I say, and pull a hand towel off the ring. I hand it to Dylan and tell her to stick it in her underpants. She gives me a questioning look and shoves the towel under her dress. We both crack up at the sight.

  “I look pregnant,” she says as she checks out her curves from the side.

  “Yeah, maybe it doesn’t work.”

  ***

  We drive downtown to the only grocery store where I think we have a chance to pull this off. It’s an Asian food market and a popular spot for underagers to test out their newly acquired fake IDs. I park the car at the side of the store where no one can see us from the entryway and Dylan lifts down the visor to use the small mirror. She puts on a fresh coat of lipstick and smacks her lips together.

  “Just admit it,” she says, and gives me a sideways glance. “How bad do you want me right now?”

  I sigh like it's absolute torture to be sitting next to her. “Denim jumpers get me so hot,” I say.

  She opens the car door and shuffles toward the entrance. A minute later, I walk in after her. I can’t pass up seeing this performance firsthand. The market’s small—not much larger than a convenience store. Dylan wanders through the aisles, whistling, and stops occasionally and picks something up to pretend she’s shopping. She swings her giant grandma purse and casually saunters over to a small selection of wine.

  I watch Dylan approach the checkout counter out of the corner of my eye. I grab a pack of gum and get in line behind her. An Asian woman behind the counter scans her items. I look away and it takes every ounce of discipline I have to keep a straight face. Dylan’s buying a can of tuna, a carton of eggs, and a bottle of red wine.

  She flips through an Enquirer magazine and greets the cashier with a loud hello. Leave it to Dylan to strike up small talk while she attempts to break the law. I have to admit, she’s fallen into character.

  “My husband’s watching the game with the boys tonight, so I finally get some alone time. And I’m celebrating!” Dylan says as she points at the wine.

  The cashier chuckles and nods. They both laugh, apparently sharing a moment only two older domesticated women can appreciate.

  I bite my lips together, waiting for some slip-up. But before I know it the cashier is asking me for sixty-five cents and Dylan’s out the front door. I hand the woman my change and meet Dylan in the car. She has a calm look on her face while she adjusts the socks in her chest.

  I sit down in the car and stare at her like she’s some kind of superhero who just released her powers.

  She takes her sunglasses off and smiles, her lipstick wet and shiny. Why do I find her hot right now? That’s just wrong.

  “It was almost too easy,” she says.

  I start the car and we pull away. “Tuna, eggs, and wine?” I say. “I think that’s the most random purchase in Asian food store history.”

  Dylan shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I wanted to be inconspicuous. I thought it would look weird if I just bought alcohol, so I tried to imagine what else a forty-year-old would buy.”

  I shake my head and tell her its genius. Dylan signs a card to my mom that we picked out earlier that day in Scottsdale. We agree to leave the card and bottle on our doorstep. I pull up to my house, knowing it’s too early for my mom to be home, and Dylan glances around to make sure no one’s looking (not that anyone would ever recognize her). She quickly sets the wine down on the front steps and sprints back to the car all hunched over like she’s trying to duck under shotgun bullets.

  A woman sprinting in a denim jumper. You don’t see that every day.

  “Okay,” she says as she shuts the car door. “I seriously need to get out of this.” She yanks on the tight collar of her turtleneck. I nod and silently agree she needs to get out of it. I want to offer to help.

  We drive back to Dylan’s house and she changes into a pair of sweatpants and a tank top. She spends almost a half hour in the bathroom, trying to scrub off her makeup. I lie on her aunt’s bed and watch television, thinking about the day, coming down off a bittersweet high. I yell out, asking Dylan how she’s doing. She yells back that the makeup won’t come off. I get up and tap the bathroom door open to find Dylan standing there, frowning at her reflection in the mirror. The costume’s gone and there’s this beautiful girl standing in front of me. Her freckles are there again, her golden eyes. I can’t take my eyes off of her. I can barely swallow. She sulks, blind to my buckling knees.

  “I know,” she says, and stares at her lips. “They’re still pink.”

  I take a step toward her and reach out to take the warm, damp washcloth from her hand. It has smears of makeup all over it. I stare down at her soft lips, puffy from all the scrubbing, and hesitantly run my thumb across them. I feel Dylan shudder when I touch her. Or maybe it’s me. I hold her face in my ha
nd and look in her eyes and she offers me the smallest grin, and that’s all I need. My eyes fall back to her lips. They look warm and soft and inviting.

  My heart’s pounding.

  I close my eyes and lean down and press my lips against hers. For how skinny Dylan is, for how lanky and strange and goofy and hyper, kissing her is a totally different experience. She slows down. But it makes my insides speed up. Her mouth is smooth and sweet and confident.

  She takes her time. It makes me crave more.

  She opens her lips and touches my mouth with her tongue and it invites so many feelings to pour out of my mind and pump through my veins until my chest burns with something I’ve never felt before.

  Love?

  Whatever it is, it’s real and it’s terrifying and mystifying and even though my eyes are closed I can see showers of light.

  I wrap my arms around Dylan and melt against her and I swear to God I could kiss this girl forever.

  ***

  Tonight, one relentless question invades my mind: When can I kiss her again? It’s all my brain cells want to focus on: That Kiss. That Kiss should be a new Hallmark holiday. A celebrated annual event. It was that good. I want to know what she thought of it. I don’t need a play-by-play review. But That Kiss ended too soon and left me wanting more. And more and more.

  I want to do something special for Dylan. I could buy her a gift, but I know she doesn’t want material things. She doesn’t wear nice jewelry. And I don’t buy flowers. That’s one gift I refuse to spend money on. I’m not going to hand over hard-earned cash for something that dies in a week.

  I could take her out to dinner. Maybe to one of those trendy fusion restaurants (what that word means exactly is a mystery to me, since fusion just sounds like a combination of the words futon and cushion, nothing to do with food, so what am I missing?). But I doubt Dylan owns the right clothes for a fancy restaurant.